ETEC 522 – September 2012

David Vogt 3:20 pm on September 16, 2012

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Tags: Evernote, PPool ( 18 )   

EverNote

An application for storing everything in your digital world:

Posted in: Pitch Pool

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  avninder 12:07 pm on September 17, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  YES, I would invest in this venture.
  The CEO seemed knowledgeable about the service provided but I do not think his passion came across too clearly in the pitch. He explained the service well in terms of functionality and capability but did not paint a picture as to which need would be fulfilled with use of EverNote. I found myself wanting more information regarding the other important players in the market and what this company had to offer in terms of a competitive advantage. There was also no information regarding the requirement for additional capital or what it would be used for.

  While watching this pitch I did not think that it was an original venture idea as I am user of Dropbox. Upon further investigation of my own however, I have come to know that this service is similar to Dropbox but offers additional capability as well, for e.g.: text in images is searchable. Even though this was mentioned in the pitch, I feel that it wasn’t stated in a way that conveyed how this feature sets this service apart from its competitors.

  The market size for a service like this could include students, employees, virtually anyone who wants to be able to store and retrieve important information from various devices. The free and subscription-based services should be able to capture the casual and heavy user respectively.

  I like how the presenter referred to the service as an ‘external brain’. The CEO discussed examples of using EverNote to take a picture of a business card or creating a voice message and searching the data by location. This made me think that for this company, success would be having users use this service on a daily basis for a variety of situations. To reach this goal I think a marketing strategy is essential. I would assume that is what an investment would be used towards so I would be open to making an offer.

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    jhodi 9:14 pm on September 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    Hi,

    I also did not think that this was an original idea since I have experienced several other technologies such as this. However, the range of markets that this technology has the potential to span is huge- students, teachers, businesses, etc. The CEO did a good job of highlighting some of the key features of Evernote such as it’s ability to store notes in text form, photo form, video form, etc. that is available on any device with an Internet connection. Although the CEO was not super enthusiastic, he came across confident and knowledgeable. Although this pitch was very short and not all of the key features of a good pitch were hit, I feel like a few of the key features were hit well enough to spark my interest.

    Jhodi

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  jhodi 9:10 pm on September 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  YES, I would invest in this venture!
  Although this pitch was very short, the concept is one that has the potential to be very wide spread. The market for this idea spans from students to large companies that need to manage a large quantity of content and are frequently on the move. The CEO does a good job of marketing Evernote as a ‘second brain’ and describing the wide range of abilities that Evernote has to store different types of content such as text or photos. Although it misses out on describing some of the points such as differentiation, championship or information about a return, the CEO does describe the different types of memberships and features that could contribute to this information. I would have liked to have learned more about this however before making a decision. However, my decision may also be influenced by the fact that I have experienced Evernote briefly in one of my courses and thought at the time that it was a neat, useful idea, although I did not explore it in depth. I feel like the CEO could have been more passionate in his speech, but I also feel as though he know what he is talking about, it confident, and has the drive to make Evernote succeed.

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  Lisa Nevoral 9:12 pm on September 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Yes, I would invest in this venture.

  Although his pitch did not display all of the content facets, he did highlight several aspects of his product that caught my attention. Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, spoke very confidently about his product in a manner that suggested that he knows his product well. This indicated to me that he is a competent CEO. He also spoke at a good pace and clearly. He explained the features of his product that would entice potential users and offered different levels of subscriptions – free and premium. This would suggest that there is money coming into this company, but without further information and investigation, I’m not sure how much. Evernote could also be used on many different devices and had versions for Windows or Macs, which would be optimal for a wider range of users.

  What I was a little unclear about and was assuming (although it was in a description for the clip) was if Evernote was an application. He calls it the “external brain”, used to remember things and always on hand. He indicated it can be used to take pictures of business cards to whiteboards, which suggests to me that this could be marketed towards business people as well as students. The capability of Evernote to be able to have a text note, voice note, and pictures, as well as the ease to find saved information makes it a good product, but Phil Libin does not compare it to any other company or why it is an original product. As well, I’m not sure what he is trying to get out of the investors? Does he need money to promote his product more or to discover more aspects to be used with Evernote? All in all, I was interested in this company and would like to see more of their business plan.

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  teacherben 12:15 am on September 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  This one is a bit tricky, since I am quite familiar with the product. I have to separate what I know already from the pitch that he gave. Based on what he delivered, I think I would invest in the company. While he came off as a bit geeky and, as was mentioned above, a little short on passion for his product, it looks as though it will become the sort of niche product that develops a limited, but devoted user-base. There may be a ton of other productivity applications out there, but each person is different and each person’s needs are a little different. A lot of these products seem to find a market. And once you have developed a system that works for you that incorporates a particular tool, you may be less likely to try too many others. Just a brief look in the Android Play store, for example, shows a lot of different programs that include features such as to-do lists, calendar integration, clip saving/sharing, all in different combinations and a lot of them have over a million downloads. And then, looking in the comments section, I see a lot of active debate. People jump up to defend their favourite productivity app to detractors.

  I think he presented his product well. The pitch was clear. We knew what it was and, for the most part, what it wasn’t. That being said, I see a comment above that compares it to Dropbox, so perhaps his pitch wasn’t that clear. EverNote is quite different from Dropbox. While it does let you sync files, the biggest file you can transfer is 50MB. When you open it, it is much more of a ‘program’ that does stuff–saves and organizes web clippings, notes, pictures etc… Dropbox is more about backup and storage and sharing big files. There is no real interface. It’s a file on your computer for the most part. He probably could have been a bit clearer.

  Now, as it turns out, EverNote may not have been the first one at the party, but they stuck around to clean up. They have a huge market share, grew far beyond what was likely predicted and have already bought out some other companies to add to their offerings. They have raised tens of millions in financing and are considering an IPO in the next year. What started as a slick to-do list is growing into something that may eventually compete with products like Google Docs. While he may not have stated as much in his pitch, he left room for that, and left enough to our imagination.

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  avninder 7:37 am on September 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  I noticed their huge success when I further researched the company as well. teacherben, are you a user of EverNote and Dropbox? Thanks for an explanation of their main differences. I may become an EverNote user as well. It can be difficult selecting appropriate applications and programs as the selection seems to be radpidly increasing.

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  teacherben 8:21 pm on September 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  A lot of these sorts of applications come and go as well, so you don’t want to commit time and energy to something that might vanish in a month or two. Evernote is a good bet. It has a userbase in the millions. I actually don’t use it much anymore. It has way more features than I need. I use a much simpler to-do list. But I am a big Dropbox advocate. I have been using it for years to share photos and videos of my kids with my family. Super useful.

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  coralk 3:23 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Fair disclosure on this one before I start: I LOVE Evernote and use it all the time. Now onto my completely unbiased review:

  Yes, I would invest in this company. I found the CEO to be likeable and knowledgeable, and he managed to give a lot of information to us in one minute but it didn’t seem rushed and I understood the value proposition that he was bringing. Specifically:
  • Evernote works on many different devices and browsers
  • He gave a lot of different examples of how it could be used: pictures, business cards, labels, voice notes, text notes
  • He explained many of the features and functionality: indexing, searchability, synchronization
  • He gave some information on how the revenue piece is set up – free subscription and a premium subscription

  Even if this wasn’t a company that I already knew about, I would be very interested to hear more based on this pitch.

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  C. Ranson 8:54 am on September 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  I need to start using EverNote, perhaps it is related to my age, my professional life, my family life and my social life all needing attention. Immediately I recognized from this pitch that this would assist me in remembering all that I need to and act as my external memory/brain.

  I would invest in this product/company. The pitch addressed a problem for a particular target group, that being difficulty in remembering and tracking everything we need to and this product could do this through various devices such as your phone or computer. The CEO provided a very clear and concise summary of what the product is and how it works, and the cost to the user. Phil Libin is a likeable person, very informative, and his presentation would leave the “catcher” impressed, as I was.

  Catherine

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  jenbarker 12:40 pm on September 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  As a user and passionate Evernote fan, I am far too biased to evaluate this pitch. That said, I found the pitch interesting. It was very general and as someone who uses it for multiple purposes I think Evernote could create multiple pitches based on different target audiences. For example, he never mentioned use of Evernote for assessment for educators. I love how I can create a notebook for each student and then stack content notebooks within the students main notebook. I can take digital images of their work, add anecdotal comments and place these with notes under the appropriate curricular area. Should I wish to share this information with other teachers or the child’s parent I have the ability to share notebooks. I could go on and on about the great uses of Evernote for educators but again this just extends my point that I think Evernote could diversify their pitches or have shown in this pitch how they meet the needs of multiple professionals such as as Educators, Businesses, etc.

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  Peggy Lawson 9:11 am on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  I would invest in Evernote. I have friend who is a real Evernote fan yet I’ve not yet taken the plunge, largely because I seem to have too many other tech tools that I haven’t taken the time to learn yet. I think the pitchman did good job of getting me interested in the product as an investor by focusing on aspects that sells its usefulness to potential customer although as an investor I would want more information about how the free veresion would generate income (yet for dot coms this doesn’t seem to deter investors). In the short elevator pitch, he was able to highlight the pain point and the solution; his manner and presentation gave me confidence as a potential investor.

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  Patrick Pichette 12:09 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Although Evernote is already fairly established, this is a venture I would have invested in from the beginning. It solves a problem by providing an elegant solution and offers many different solutions to garner a large user base and encourage non subscribers to eventually become subscribers as their usage increases. I also feel that his presentation shows confidence and professionalism which encourages me further knowing that the product is in the hands of a capable CEO.

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  kstackhouse 12:41 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Knowing Evernote and its success I would have wished that I had invested in this product. The CEO was confident, identified an issue and how they tackle that issue, and the ways one could use their product/service. During the Sales Pitch though, there was no mention of a few things that might be important to an EVA…

  What investment was he looking for?
  What would be the next steps with that investment?
  When would I see a return?
  How does their service differ/compare to others available or are they the only solution for this “pain”?

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    teacherben 5:45 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    You still have a chance to invest. They are planning an IPO this year or early next.

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      kstackhouse 5:52 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks for the tip. I’m not sure I have the cash flow that it would take to be an investor. How many units or shares would one have to buy? Any guess at the price they will set to begin with? I have never invested in an IPO…this is all new to me.

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  rebecca42 2:47 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Yes, I would invest in this venture.

  The CEO does not appear as enthusiastic as I would expect but he certainly appears to know what he’s talking about. He highights the benefits: ability to use it from different devices and browsers and that it allows all different formats of saving. It is a step in the right direction as far as being able to integrate information from every type of source. From the pitch it sounds like this concept addresses the problem of individuals who might have a variety of sources of information and difficulty keeping it all together in one easy-to-manage location. I, too, have used things like dropbox and other online document storing sites, but this sounds like a whole different idea.

  I imagine that marketing something like this would be pretty straight-forward and the market for it would be huge. I’d like to know how they would plan on keeping their hold in the market and what exactly they were looking for in terms of an investment (and, of course, what kind of return would be expected). In addition, I’d like to know what incentives there are for individual users moving from a free to subscription account, is there anything other than extra space for storing that is provided?

  Another big question is the security of Evernote. Could school districts use it for storing information? Law firms? The public health sector? Is it safe enough to put any kind of information on? If it is this could provide a huge area for them to move into.

  Although Evernote might be successful now, what is their growth plan. Where can they go from there and what else do they have to offer in the future?

  All in all future consideration is certainly merited. A great venture to look deeper into.

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  visramn 11:31 pm on September 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

  Yes, I would invest in this product. The presenter did a good job of explaining all the uses of Evernote and how versatile and accessible it is from multiple sources. However, the speaker was fairly monotone and did not catch my attention.
  The product is not very original in the sense that there are many products similar to this one in the market. However, I was drawn to this product because this product has many features that others do not have and because it can be accessed from many different technical venues.
  The presenter talked about the fact that this product can either be free or can be upgraded with a fee. However, there was not any concrete data or statistic about this product presented. This type of information would make investors feel more comfortable in investing in the product.
  Despite the many missing pieces in this pitch I still believe I would invest in this product. Not because the presenter did a good job of drawing me to the product or of convincing me of its potential success. In fact, I found that the presentation was lacking a lot of data, information and enthusiasm. Rather, I would invest because I think this product would have a lot of potential due to all the functions it has and due to its wide range of accessibility. It is a good combination of tools that can allow a user to achieve multiple purposes through one product. This type of tool would have a huge market because individuals of all ages could benefit from the capabilities. The product has a lot to offer and it does not seem to have a lot of cost attached to it.
  I do not know much about this product and would not be able to contribute to it in any other regard but I do know that products such as these have a good chance of being successful because I have used similar products and have seen others use them also. The only difference is I have had to use multiple tools to achieve the same purpose and this tool would be all-in-one.